'Spring' Pasta with Fresh Garden Herbs

Just finished cooking my classic 'French Style' Roast Chicken - which I'll write about another time - and as I was sorting out some pictures I came across a lunch I made the other day which I thought I'd share. It's so wonderfully simply and tasty, it seems selfish to keep it to myself!

It's actually based on a recipe from Antonio Carluccio, but what's nice about it is that it's not really a recipe at all, more a guide. It's the kind of thing you can usually throw together at the last minute from pretty much what you have in the garden, so can be invaluable for these sort of quick lunches or light suppers. The core of it is the making of a sort of lightweight pesto to dress pasta. Here's the recipe for two people.

• First get some water on the boil for pasta as normal. Remember water for pasta should be generously salted - most of the salt stays in the water, so it's not all going into you.
• Gather a good handful or two of whatever fresh herbs are growing well, and for that matter whatever you fancy. For this one I had a few leaves of sage, a few of mint, about 10 leaves or so of basil, some parsley and a few sprigs of thyme. In the past I've also used majoram, rosemary, lemon balm, black peppermint, oregano, wild garlic, literally anything will work. Personally I think mint works especially well.
• Next add a few nuts, between 10-20 - usually these would be pinenuts, but for this one I used toasted hazelnuts that I'd kept in a jar left over from winter. Doesn't really matter what, you can pretty much choose whatever you like again.
• Put all these together and roughly chop them, leaving some large pieces of nut and herb here and there (but making sure you're not going to choke anyone!).
• Now get the pasta in the water and cook as normal, usually I'll go for something long like linguine or spaghetti.
• In a separate pan, large enough to add the pasta in later, melt a large knob of butter and a good glug of olive oil. Finally chop a garlic clove (or crush it for a more intense flavour) and add it to the oil on a low heat to infuse.
• Grate a generous handful or two of paremsan, and add it to the herbs, ready to go in with the garlic. Keep a little aside to finish.
• Once the pasta has about a minute or so to go, stir the chopped herbs, nuts and parmesan into the oil, butter and garlic and leave it on the heat to warm through.
• Finally drain the pasta, and toss it into the herby buttery mix - make sure you leave a fair bit of liquid in the pasta, as it will emulsify with the mixture and create a light sauce.

Enjoy - with a nice glass of red, some toasted bread, and good company in the sunshine :-)

'Ziti' Al Forno

Bit of a cock-up last weekend, as what with one thing and another I never managed to get to the butchers in time to get some meat to roast, at least not a joint. As ever with these things though that forced me to be more creative and I turned to a recipe that I had been wanting to do for some time - Ziti al Forno from Antonio Carluccio's "Passion for Pasta".

"Passion for Pasta" is a fab book and well worth getting a copy. There are so many pasta books out there, which generally speaking I find a bit of waste of time, but let's face it, Antonio is the master when it comes to this sort of thing (well, one of the masters at least! I can't really write something like that without at least mentioning Gennaro Contaldo). What Passion for Pasta has though above most books is that insight which understands that pasta is not something just to pour sauce over, but is an intrinsic part of the meal in itself. Carluccio brings across to the reader the critical message that not only is the choice of flavour of pasta, i.e. combinations of ingredients such as egg or durum wheat for example, a big part of the dish, but also that the shape of the past itself has a very important part to play, and whatever pasta you choose will have a big impact on the finished dish.

So what, you may be wondering, is 'Ziti' Al Forno? Well first off it is not a roast, but a baked dish, hence the "Al Forno". It was Sunday lunch though! You'd probably be surprised how often a baked pasta dish like this ends up as the special dish of the week. Lasagna, for example, often ends up on the Sunday lunch table in Italy so my partner tells me. She should know - she is Italian after all. And the 'Ziti'? Well they are in fact effectively long tubes of macaroni, and difficult to get hold of here in Devon, which is why they're in quotes. I actually ended up using a style of penne as it was the closest I could get - which brings me onto the dish itself.

Preparation time - sorting out the ingredients

Now I should say that I did deviate a fair bit from the straight recipe, which on top of the missing Ziti also calls for the addition of chicken livers and salami. I have to say after eating it though that I'm kind of glad I did leave them out (not that they were exactly to hand at the time!) as even without these it was a pretty rich dish. Basically the whole thing is layers of pasta, mozzarella, beef meatballs and tomato sauce which is finished with beaten egg, plenty of parmesan and baked in the oven - serious food.

Creating the Dish

We're big fans of meatballs and these little guys were fab - simply made from some beef mince that we did find up the road, a little onion, garlic, parmesan, bread and parsley from the garden. Think these will be a common feature in the kitchen in future just cooked by themselves and served with a bit of pasta and sauce. I'm not sure the raw garlic in them worked so well though - personally I love garlic but this could of done with just a little cooking first I reckon.

Frying up the meatballs

The tomato sauce was simplicity itself as well, just a few tins of good Italian tomatoes cooked down with some seasoning, herbs and wine. For pasta we did have to use penne but these were De Cecco organic penne, smaller than most with a good rough surface and the kind of quality that can be baked and still keep their al dente texture.

Before baking, covered in parmesan

Overall a fab dish, not as complex as it at first sounds, and delicious and impressive to serve. Recommended!

Finished!